Chapter 11–The Betrayer’s Plan

He stood in the shadows, watching.

He did not pace. He did not fidget.

He had waited too long for this moment to betray himself with impatience.

The girl—Selene—sat motionless in her cell, her red hair falling over her face, her breathing steady, almost too steady.

She was close.

He could feel it.

The spell had worked.

The mate bond had been cut off-not broken, but sealed away, buried beneath layers of magic older than the packs themselves.

Without it, she had nothing tying her to this life.

Nothing but the past.

And now?

Now it was only a matter of time before the past consumed her.

For so long, she had been lost.

Buried under a false name, a false life.

A Luna of the Onyx Pack. A mate. A lover. A woman who did not exist.

He had watched. He had waited.

He had seen the way she laughed, lived, loved.

A tragedy.

A waste.

She was never meant for that life.

She was meant for this.

For war.

For power.

For vengeance.

She had been forged in fire and blood.

And now, at last, she would remember.

The bond had to be blocked

It was the only way.

The mate bond was too strong. It kept her rooted in the present, clinging to a man who did not deserve her.

If she had been given the choice, she would have never let go.

But she did not get a choice.

So he had taken it.

He had ripped the bond from her grasp, closed the door between her and her mate.

And with it, he had forced open the doors she had forgotten.

There had been one flaw in his plan.

One small, unfortunate chance.

Severing the bond—even temporarily—might not have only awakened her.

It might have awakened him, too.

The mate.

The one who had once stood at her side, fought for her, bled for her.

The one who had lost her.

The one who should have died with her.

Theo.

Atlas.

He doubted they would remember.

They had never been meant to.

But some small part of him wondered.

Some part of him feared.

What if the severing of the bond was enough to shatter the lie?

What if the mate had not forgotten as completely as he believed?

He pushed the thought away.

Even if Theo and Atlas did remember, it would not change what was coming.

Selene belonged here.

Not in the Onyx Pack.

Not as a mate.

She was more than that.

She was his queen.

And when she awoke, she would forget him.

She would forget all of it.

He watched her closely.

Her breathing had changed.

Her fingers twitched against the stone floor.

And then—she gasped.

A sharp, shuddering inhale, as if she had been drowning and had just broken the surface.

Her body tensed.

Her eyes flew open.

And he knew.

She remembered.

All of it.

His chest tightened with satisfaction.

He took a slow step forward, watching as she adjusted, waiting for the moment when she would look at him with empty eyes.

Waiting for the moment when she would forget.

But then—

She turned to him.

And she did not forget.

Her green eyes locked onto his, not empty, not confused.

But furious.

Burning.

Because she remembered everything.

And worst of all—

She remembered him.

The moment her gaze landed on him, he knew.

She knew who he was.

She knew what he had done.

And she knew exactly why he had done it.

For the first time, a chill ran through his veins.

He had been wrong.

And now, he would pay for it.